Bush library searches for Web site name

AUSTIN, Texas - While President Bush's advisers were taking offers on an ideal spot for his library and museum, they probably should have paid more attention to the virtual real-estate market.

Officials finally settled on Southern Methodist University in Dallas to house the $250 million complex. But online, some of the best addresses are gone - snapped up for mere dollars by squatters who have no connection to the library yet hope to make fun of the president, protect him or simply cash in on his name.

At one time, the Bush Library Foundation owned the easiest Web site to remember: www.GeorgeWBushLibrary.com.

But whether on purpose or because of an oversight - foundation spokesman Taylor Griffin wasn't sure - it lost that domain name last year. Illuminati Karate, a Web company in Raleigh, N.C., picked it up for less than $10.

Since then, offers have come in to buy it, although company officials won't say who or how much. And they're coy on what they plan to do with such a recognizable site.

"We're just holding onto it for the time being," said lead Web developer George Huger. "To be honest, I couldn't believe someone was letting it expire."

Having lost such an obvious choice, the foundation is hunting in other e-territories for accessible and memorable Internet brand.

The group has registered a few, such as GWBPresidentialLibrary.com, and is "looking at other options" before making a final decision, Griffin said.

GeorgeWBushLibrary.gov might work, since government sites aren't open to the public, as well as sites ending in "edu." That's what his father's library at Texas A&M University uses, BushLibrary.tamu.edu.

Free-market laws and freedom of speech let people buy or register whatever domain names they want for whatever purpose - often to the chagrin of politicians whose names are co-opted by foes.

When Bill Clinton was president, the owners of www.whitehouse.com turned it into a porn site. It's now a political blog.

"It can get extremely confusing, particularly for seniors or first-time users," said John Kurpis, owner of IDEAS-Inc. in New Jersey.

To keep sites from being abused by squatters, he registers domain names and then gives them free to those he believes are the rightful owners.

He's registered several related to the library, including GeorgeWBushPresidentialLibrary.com, so he could hand it over to the Bush foundation and no one else.

Officials have offered him money for one or two of them. He rejected that "as a matter of principle," saying they can have them for free.

For all his good intentions, Kurpis - who also is holding names related to Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama - can't save them all.

For instance, GeorgeWBushLibrary.org and WhiteHouse.org, go to anti-Bush Web sites owned by Chickenhead Productions of Brooklyn.

Having to deal with outside interests that own a desired site is "fairly common," Griffin said.

Clearly, the Bush camp is taking a different approach now on that issue.

In 1999, when a prankster co-opted www.gwbush.com and used it to parody Bush, his lawyers tried to take it down. And Bush made a frustrated comment heard round the World Wide Web.